Teachers and lecturers work more unpaid overtime than any other profession, according to data published today by the Trades Union Congress. They give �215.06 worth of free work each week to their pupils - as I used to see it - or to their employers, as the TUC sees it.   more »

The Guardian has the best education news coverage, but is incorrigibly spin-ridden. It apparently cannot report facts without the 'angle' it chooses dominating the whole report. I have therefore selected from a few paragraphs of today's news on falling numbers of language students, omitting the axe-grinding.   more »

We write custom essays, assignments, book reports, term papers and other course work for students in colleges and universities throughout Malaysia.   more »

News from the BBC adds that Mrs Kelly has decreed that the exams will be harder. A Conservative protested that students have been awarded Grade A in Maths, when they have got only 45%. If that is true, then it is time that the grade boundaries be raised.

On the other hand, the year that yielded grade As for 45% might have had   more »

Having stumbled on Google Scholar, I have done a quick investigation to see how it differs from ordinary Google or other search engines.   more »

The government is revealing its response to Tomlinson's proposed shake-up of the British exam system tomorrow.

If academic and vocational qualifications are merged in one great pudding, are the exam boards, faced with an even greater range of subjects to examine, not going to jetison minority subjects like Latin at once?   more »

Under this headline the Sunday Times announced the launch tomorrow of a review of the English curriculum. The article was mostly speculation, but suggested the possible removal of Milton " a difficult poet to read", Herrick and Henry Vaughan.

My eye was caught by the word 'classics', as you might expect, which does increasingly mean ...   more »

When someone registers on the ARLT web site I usually have a look at their school site, first to see if they are on the staff list (I try to keep our teachers' Section exclusive to teachers) and secondly to see how lively the Classics department is and how they use the internet.

The other day I was able to congratulate ...   more »

Age, catamite -- fac mihi hunc diem felicissimum!

If you want to really, really, really irritate somebody, insult him in Latin. Then sneer at him for not having had a classical education, and tell him patronizingly that ..   more »

Cui bono, asked the advocate: who benefits?    more »

A virtual sculpture gallery does the obvious thing for our internet age. It shows a selection of ancient sculpture, Greek, Hellenistic and Roman, in its original and its digitally painted guise. I've put one pair on this blog, in the sculpture folder of the picture section.

Here's another one that caught my attention:   more »

Just as we have an identified first-aider on each floor of the building, so the company should be responsible for finding those members of staff with a reasonable working knowledge of Latin and issuing each of them with a badge,   more »

A new book on the heroes and heroine in the fight against slavery is reviewed in The Guardian, and includes this:

But above all there was the abolitionist's most tireless worker, Thomas Clarkson. He was a giant of a man, more than 6ft tall, with striking red hair. Clarkson sprang into prominence when he entered, and won, England's top Latin essay competition. His chosen subject was the slave trade and his tract became famous.   more »

Bad news from EU study of language teaching. In Eastern Europe you have to learn English or Russian, and they 'do not accept ancient Greek or Latin as alternatives.'   more »

I reported the bare bones of Ruth Kelly's statement yesterday. This is how the papers treated the story today:   more »

David Swift has a wondrous collection of photos from last year's ARLT Summer School simply entitled "We had fun!"   more »

I may, as often, be years out of date, but I've discovered, on browsing the new-look JACT site, that the Good Text Guide is there in a searchable form. Whatever Latin or Greek text you want to read or teach, you can ...   more »

These are the contact details for the Joint Association of Classics Teachers. The phone number has changed.   more »

The Press Association has just reported that:

"Education Secretary Ruth Kelly attempted to reassure teachers that they will not be sued if children are hurt on school trips. Mrs Kelly announced that new guidelines would "ensure" teachers who "take reasonable care" will be protected by the law in the event of ...   more »

An exhibition in Arkansas of artifacts from Stabiae calls forth a long review including the following, which might come in handy when teaching about the life of the Roman upper crust.   more »

This could inspire some students, perhaps.

"The outline of William Sanders Scarborough's autobiography sounds like the plot to an improbable novel:

"Born a slave in Macon, he broke the law by learning to read. As a young man he witnessed the end of the Civil War, then excelled in school and went on to college. He became a professor of Greek and Latin - perhaps the leading black classicist of his generation - and served 12 years as president of an Ohio university.   more »

"Rome," HBO's new sweeping, multimillion-dollar, sword-and-sandal epic series, is poised to give viewers a down-and-dirty version of history, heralded by producers as the most authentic interpretation of life in the ancient city ever put on film.   more »

Robert Bowman, the actor playing Odysseus in the Bristol Old Vic's forthcoming production was interviewed by IC Wales.

I was intending to book for this play, but now I'm not so sure.   more »

The Sunday Times today gives the news that "David W Packard, whose family helped to found the Hewlett-Packard computer company, is concerned that the site may be poorly conserved or that excavation of the library may not continue unless he underwrites the work."   more »

I gave up taking traditional school trips abroad a few years before I retired from teaching. I was afraid of being sued by parents if anything went wrong. The last trip I took consisted of two parents and four students, with the parents taking responsibility for the young people.

I may have been paranoid, but I wasn't prepared to take the risk. I know that parents at my school were beginning to sue the school if their child fell over and injuried herself in the school grounds, so can you blame me?   more »

We may be deprived of Greek drama at Stratford with the cancellation of Hecuba , but the theatre there is being Roman this year, with Shakespeare's Julius Caesar on now, and Ben Jonson's Sejanus coming in the summer. I expect Julius Caesar is too well known to need comment. Being closely based on Plutarch it is a play you can safely take your students to see for a Roman view of Caesar. As for Ben Jonson, it is worth quoting the theatre's website on this play:   more »

I've been to see Bacchae in Bristol, in a production by the Kneehigh Company. My friend, who didn't know the play, was confused about what was happening, and I can understand why. But she politely insists that she enjoyed the performance.   more »

The Athenians went to no plays for ten months of the year. and then had an orgy of play-going: Three days on the trot with four plays a day, one day with three comedies, not to mention other events. It makes the Three Choirs Festival look an occasion for wimps!   more »

Robert Kilroy-Silk has launched a new political party called Veritas, Latin for "truth". Even though the language is now largely ignored in schools, it still plays a big part in English. So how well do you know these commonly-used Latin words and phrases?   more »

Robert Kilroy-Silk has launched a new political party called Veritas, Latin for "truth". Even though the language is now largely ignored in schools, it still plays a big part in English. So how well do you know these commonly-used Latin words and phrases?   more »

This looks like a wonderful opportunity to let your Latin and Classical Civ students feel they are 'where it's at', or 'cutting edge.' BBC Time Team are planning archaeology on a grand scale. Here's the beginning of their announcement (read the rest here):

This summer Time Team are hoping you will join them in the most   more »

While I was visiting my sister near Stratford on Avon last weekend I picked up a brochure for Roman Alcester, and was planning to visit it on my way home last Tuesday, only to see that is open only Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Perhaps next time I visit ... Meanwhile, I've seen the Roman Alcester website and learn that the mini-museum has been opened just a few months, since May 2004.   more »

I shall have to leave it to you to do the relevant sums, but this news item from today's Times gives something to go on. What interests me is that, in terms of extra earning power, biology does not count as a science. You have to go for Phys and Chem. I wonder how much PricewaterhouseCoopers charged for their research, and how Classics would fare if our organisations commissioned a similar survey.   more »

The TV presenter Sarah Cawood was interviewed on Tuesday January 18, 2005 in The Guardian. She has presented The Girlie Show, Top of the Pops and Live & Kicking and is the new draw presenter on the National Lottery Jet Set, so she seems to have potential 'street cred' among girls, anyway. And she enjoyed Latin!   more »

Up to 170,000 children in Britain are being educated at home, according to a feature in today's Guardian.

I admit that I have sometimes daydreamed   more »